at him, elfishly and without excuse or explanation.

Once they two, sitting alone before the hearth--Nathaniel in his great
chair, Priscilla in her small one--faced each other fearsomely for a
time; then the child gave the gurgling laugh of inner understanding that
maddened the father.

"What you laughing at?" he muttered, taking the pipe from his mouth.

"You!" Priscilla was only seven then, but large and strong.

"Me? How dare you!"

"You are so funny. If I screw my eyes tight I see two of you."

Then Nathaniel struck her. Not brutally, not maliciously; he wanted
desperately to set himself right by--old-time and honoured methods--force
of authority!

Priscilla sprang from her chair, all the laughter and joyousness gone
from her face. She went close to her father, and leaning toward him as
though to confide the warning to him more directly, said slowly:

"Don't you do that or Cilla will hate you!"

It was as if she meant to impress upon him that past a certain limit he
could not go.

Nathaniel rose in mighty wrath at this, and, white-faced and outraged,
darted toward the rebel, but she escaped him and put the width of the